Childhood Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, and Neglect are Associated with Theory of Mind Decoding Accuracy in Young Adults with Depression

Major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability worldwide (WHO, 2017), and is associated with significant impairment in interpersonal functioning (Barrett  and Barber, 2007). The social cognitive foundation of successful interpersonal functioning is ‘theory of mind,’ or the ability to decode and reason about others’ internal mental states (Wellman, 1990). Two recent meta-analyses of studies comparing patient groups to healthy individuals have confirmed significantly poorer theory of mind performance in depression (Bora and Berk, 2016; Richman and Unoka, 2015).
Source: Psychiatry Research - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research